Manchester United have confirmed that captain Wayne Rooney will miss Tuesday’s Champions League game against PSV Eindhoven.
United fly out to Holland on Monday afternoon ahead of their first Champions League group stage match, but Rooney will not be on the plane.
The United forward suffered a hamstring injury last week and was not among the 20-strong party listed for the trip to Eindhoven on United’s website on Monday morning.
Speaking after Saturday’s 3-1 win over Liverpool, which Rooney also missed, manager Louis van Gaal said: “I don’t want to take any risks with our captain. He is much too important for our team.
“I don’t think he shall play against PSV. It is a minor injury and I believe he shall play against Southampton (on Sunday).”
Van Gaal must decide whether to stick with Marouane Fellaini, who started up front against Liverpool, or bring goal-scoring debutant Anthony Martial into the starting line-up.
Another alternative is 19-year-old striker James Wilson, who has been named in the travelling party for the game at the Philips Stadion.
David de Gea has been included in the squad after he was brought in from the cold for the win over Liverpool.
Brazilian midfielder Andreas Pereira, who signed for United from PSV four years ago, has overcome his injury troubles and is included in the squad.
Phil Jones is still absent as he continues his recovery from thrombosis.
In the blue half of Manchester, meanwhile, City captain Vincent Kompany claims Manuel Pellegrini’s side are hungry for success and determined to deliver in the Champions League.
City have begun the season emphatically by winning their opening five Barclays Premier League matches without conceding a goal.
Now they want to carry that momentum into the Champions League, in which they have never previously progressed beyond the last 16.
They begin their latest challenge on Tuesday with a testing visit from last season’s runners-up Juventus.
Kompany said: “There is nobody who left the Champions League satisfied last year.
“Okay, we came against the best team in the world in Barcelona, and I guess that made it a little bit easier to understand, but that is not what we want.
“We don’t want to go out to the strongest teams but to compete with them and at least beat them on a regular basis.
“Everything has been so bright and so good so far but, as people have been saying for the last three or four years, as long as we don’t perform and show our quality in the Champions League, as we have in the Premier League, there will always be something left behind that leaves us unsatisfied.
“It is a really important game for us. We have been looking forward to the start of the competition since the disappointing game in Barcelona. Tomorrow is a game everyone is going to be up for.”
In mitigation, City have been drawn in tough groups in each of their past four Champions League seasons and again they face a difficult task. As well as Juventus, Group D also includes Bundesliga side Borussia Monchengladbach and Europa League winners Sevilla.
City’s optimism is tempered slightly by the loss of star striker Sergio Aguero. The Argentinian suffered a knee injury in a late challenge from Crystal Palace’s Scott Dann at the weekend and has not recovered. On the positive side, David Silva and Sterling are both fit after missing the trip to Palace with ankle and hamstring problems respectively.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here